USA > Ohio > Ashtabula County > History of Ashtabula County, Ohio > Part 43
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then in the county, united in calling a union convention, and nominated a ticket made up of Whigs and Democrats, each one of whom was then regarded as a pro-slavery man. And, what may now be regarded as a singular fact, the opposi- tion to the agitation of the slavery question was such at that time in Ashtabula County that the entire Whig ticket, with B. F. Wade at its head, was defeated at the election, and pro-slavery men elected instead.
In 1843 he was again nominated as a candidate for a member of the house of representatives by the Whigs, and elected by his party. In the spring of 1845 he exchanged property in Kelloggsville for farm-lands in Sheffield, to which he removed with his family in the early part of April of that year, where, for the next four years, he engaged in farming and making lumber. In 1846 he was appointed, and performed the duties of, one of the appraisers of real estate in the county, and in November, 1847, was elected justice of the peace for Sheffield, which office he held until the spring of 1849. At the spring term of the court of common pleas in 1849 he was appointed clerk of that court, and in May of that year removed from Sheffield to Jefferson, where he has since resided. Under this appointment he held the office of clerk until the adoption of the new constitution, in 1852, when he was elected to the same office, and re-elected in 1855.
At the September term of the district court, 1857, he was admitted to the bar, and in the spring of 1858 commenced the practice of his profession in company with the late Colonel A. S. Hall and Judge D. S. Wade, which partnership con- tinued until the retirement of Colonel Hall and the election of Wade to the office of probate judge, when, in the autumn of 1860, he formed a partnership with E. Lee, Esq., which continued until the appointment of the latter to the office of common pleas judge, in the spring of 1875, soon after which he formed a part- nership and is now doing business with E. Jay Pinney, Esq.
At the general election in 1863 he was elected a member of the house of rep- resentatives, where he served two sessions. On the expiration of his term in the house he was elected to the State senate, when, on the first day of the first ses- sion of the senate of 1866, he, among other things, introduced his resolution to amend the State constitution by striking the word " white" from article five, sec- tion one, thereby giving the elective franchise to the colored man, which resolu- tion was adopted by the requisite two-thirds majority, with an objectionable amendment at the close of the session of 1867, submitted to the people and de- feated the same year; thus showing that as late as 1867 the people of Ohio re- fused to give the elective franchise to the colored man, thousands of whom had volunteered and been accepted to fight the battles of the War of the Rebellion and save the nation from dissolution and ruin.
On the expiration of his term in the senate, in 1867, he retired from political life, since which time he has devoted his time and attention to private business and that connected with the Second National bank of Jefferson, of which he is and for some years has been director and president. Being uncompromisingly hostile to human slavery and ardently attached to the Union, and believing from the first that the Rebellion would ultimately work the extinction of slavery from all our fair and proud land, he gave the best energies of his mature manhood towards raising men and means for the support of the government, and contrib- uted of his time and money for that purpose. Politically a Whig, Free-soiler, and Republican successively, he always attached himself to and acted with those that he believed would administer the government most in accordance with the spirit of the constitution and the natural rights of man, and gave his earnest and active support to Mr. Grecley, for President, in 1872.
Making no profession of any distinctive religious faith or dogma, he for many years contributed of his means to the support of that branch of the church known as Congregational. MIr. Kellogg dicd, suddenly and unexpectedly, on the 27th day of April, 1878.
Matilda Kellogg, his wife, was born at Vernon, Trumbull county, Ohio, Octo- ber 4, 1815 ; was the daughter of Allen and Maria Spencer, and granddaughter of General Martin Smith, who emigrated from Hartland, Connecticut, to Vernon, with his family, in 1799, and died at the age of ninety-five, after a long, useful, and exemplary public and private life. The mother of Matilda dying in her infancy, and her father contracting a second marriage, after a few years spent with her father and step-mother in Hartford, Trumbull county, Ohio, and the death of her father in 1830, went to Kelloggsville, and remained with an aunt until she was married to the subject of this sketch, October 2, 1834, at the age of nineteen years.
Having a delicate physical organization illy able to resist the demands and strain made upon it by the rearing of a family, and the cares, labors, and respon- sibilities incident thereto, her life has been one of much pain and suffering, all of which she has borne with great fortitude and patience, and discharged all the du- ties of an affectionate and devoted wife and a wise and conscientious mother, re- gardless of any and all consequences to herself, and is still living at the age of sixty-three years, the mother of three sons and three daughters, all living.
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HISTORY OF ASHTABULA COUNTY, OHIO.
HON. WILLIAM KELLOGG.
This gentleman was born in Salem, now Monroe, Ohio, July 8, 1814. Ile emigrated to Canton, Fulton county, Illinois, in 1837; read law; admitted to the bar ; practiced his profession ; aequired an extensive practice, especially in respect to land titles ; member of the State legislature in 1849 and '50 ; judge of the circuit court, which position he held for three years; elected to eon- gress from the Peoria distriet in 1856; re-elected in 1858, and again in 1860. In 1864 was appointed minister resident in Guatemala by President Lineoln, and in 1865 chief-justiee of Nebraska, which position he held until the organization of the Territory into a State, in February, 1867. In 1869 he was appointed one of the judges under the provisional government of Mississippi, and retained it until the inauguration of Governor Alcorn, in February, 1870, and died at Peoria, Illinois, December 20, 1872.
PLATT ROGERS SPENCER. INTRODUCTION.
I have read with deep and affectionate interest the sketch of the life of Platt R. Spencer, which has been prepared for the History of Ashtahula County. I am sure the authors of that work will honor their pages hy an extended notice of that nohle character.
I first saw Mr. Spencer in 1857, when he came to Hiram, Ohio, and delivered a lecture before the students of the Eclectie institute. I was struck with the clearness and originality of his mind, and with the pathetic tenderness of his spirit. Soon afterwards he and his sons took charge of the department of penmanship iu the institute, and from that time forward I was intimately acquainted with his mind and heart. I have met few men who so completely won my coufideuce and affection. The beautiful in nature and art led him a willing and happy eaptive.
To know what books a man delights in enables us to know the man bimself, and when I say that Robert Burns was one of his favorite authors it is equivalent to saying that a keen relish for the humorous, sympathy with the lowly, and love of all that is beautiful in nature and art, were the distinguishing traits of his character.
Like all men who are well made, he was self-made. Though his boyhood was limited hy the hard lot of pioneer life, his love for the beautiful found expression in an art which his genius raised from the grade of manual drudgery to the rank of a fine art.
It is honorable to undertake any worthy work and accomplish it successfully. It is great to become the first in any such work, and it is unquestionably true that Mr. Spencer made himself tbe foremost penman of the world. And this he did without masters. He not only became the first penman, but he analyzed all the elements of ehirography, simplified its forms, arranged them iu consceutive order, and created a system which has become the foundation of instruction in that art in all the public schools of our conntry.
But his mind was too large and his sympathy too quick and active to be confined to any one pursuit. The poor and the oppressed found in him a friend and champion. He was always ready to lend a helping hand to those who were struggling for a higher culture ; for he had ex- perienced in his own life the obstacles which poverty places in the pathway of generous and ambitious youth.
To such a nature the right of every man to his freedom was as elear as his right to the air and sunshine, and hence we find that in the beginning of the anti-slavery agitation, at a time when sympathy with the slave meant not only political hut social ostracism, Mr. Spencer was outspoken in his denunciation of slavery in all its forms.
I shall never forget the ardor with which he supported the cause of the Union against the slaveholders' rebellion, and the sadness with which he referred to the fact that he was too old to serve bis country in the field. He did not live to see the final triumph of the Union, but he saw the light of coming victory and shared the joy of its promise.
To the thousands of young men and women who enjoyed the benefit of his brilliant instruc- tion, to the still larger cirele of his friends and acquaintances, and to all who love a gifted, noble, and true-hearted man, the memory of his life will remain a perpetual benediction.
JAMES A. GARFIELD.
Platt R. Spencer was a man of a rare combination of qualities. With an in- tellect elear and aetive, and a memory exceedingly tenacious, he united a strong poetic sense, lively imagination, and sineere love for the beautiful in nature and in art. At times subjeet to melancholy, he was in general of a cheerful disposi- tion, prolifie in anecdote, and possessed of a keen relish for humor. With a fine sense of justice and honor, he was inelined to be more exacting of himself in his dealings than of others. His affections were strong and his friendships abiding. He was a generous, open-hearted man, overflowing with good-will, with few en- mities, and not a particle of guile or hypocrisy in his nature.
The father of the subject of our sketch was Caleb Spencer, a native of Rhode Island, and a soldier of the Revolution. Hle married a Massachusetts woman, Jerusha Covell, from the town of Chatham, on Cape Cod. They settled in the eastern part of the State of New York, living for a few years in Dutchess eounty. Then for a time in Westchester, when they returned to Dutchess, and occupied a farm on the high hills of East Fishkill. It was here, on the 7th of November, in the first year of this eentury, that Platt Rogers Spencer was born.
He was the youngest of a family of eleven, nine of whom were boys. Two of these gave their lives to their country in the War of 1812,-one dying at Malden, Canada. in the army under Harrison, and the other while a prisoner by the surrender of Detroit.
In Platt's third year we find the family removed from Fishkill and living near the Hudson, in the vieinity of Wappinger's Falls. Their next home was upon the Catskill mountains, in Windham, Greene county. New York. The parents were true children of New England, born and reared upon its rugged eoast, and nothing seems to have pleased them better than to face the mountain winds, and wring from intraetable soils the necessaries of life. They had few riches beyond the promising band of young hearts that gathered at their fireside. These they gave such educational privileges as their scanty means would afford, and trained to the exereise of sterling virtues.
The beautiful scenery of the Catskills and the Hudson left a lasting impress upon Platt's suseeptible young mind, and ever afterwards in his western home, among attractions less picturesque, and of a quite different order, he cherished a delightful remembranee of the eharms of nature,-the blue mountain ridges, the glens, cascades, and expansive views that surrounded him in early childhood.
It was here in Windham, at the age of seven, that he began to exhibit a fond- ness for his favorite art. His taste manifested itself, almost before he had begun to handle the pen, in his observations and criticisms of the handwriting of the public notiees posted at the door of the school-house.
His first, and, it seems, his only instruetor in writing, was Samuel Baldwin, the distriet sehoolmaster. Of the beginning of his " ehirographic pilgrimage," seated upon a slab bench in the Windham school-house, and armed with the in- dispensable goose-quill and Barlow knife, he afterwards gave one of his chiarae- teristieally graphic and humorous aeeounts.
Nothing will better illustrate the intensity of his boyish passion for his art than the story of his first whole sheet of paper, which we cannot forbear reeiting in his own words. Ile says, "Up to February, 1808, I had never been the rich owner of a whole sheet of paper. At that time, bceoming the fortunate propri- etor of a eent, I dispatched it by a lumberman to Catskill, which, though twenty miles distant, was the nearest market, and instructed him to purchase the desired paper. He returned at midnight, and the bustle awakening mne, I inquired eagerly for the result of his mission. He had been suceessful, and brought the sheet to my bedside, rolled tightly and tied with a blaek linen thread. Having earried it the entire distance in his bosom, it was of course much wrinkled. I at once arose, and having smoothed it eommeneed operations. Before its arrival, my im- agination had pietured to me what beautiful work I eould do thereon. But the trial proved a failure. I could not produce a single letter to my mind; and after an hour's feverish effort, I returned to my bed disappointed, and to be haunted by feverish dreams."
Paper being to Platt a luxury rarely attainable in those days, he had reeourse to other materials. The bark of the birch-tree, the sand-beds by the brook, and the iee and snow in winter, furnished his praetice sheets. One of his favorite resorts also was the shop of his indulgent old friend the shoemaker, whose de- pleted ink-horn and sides of leather covered with the efforts of the young enthu- siast, gave frequent proof of his boyish zeal.
Platt had lost his father in his sixth year, and the eare of the family had dc- volved upon the mother, a woman of much energy and perseveranee, and upon the elder brothers. The pioneer spirit seized the family, and quitting their mountain home, they turned their faces towards the new State of Ohio, in the then far western wilderness.
After a tedious journey of fifty-one days in wagons, they arrived in Jefferson, Ashtabula County, Ohio, on the 5th of December, 1810. The family gradually separated, settling in the shore-towns of Kingsville, Ashtabula, and Geneva.
WASHINGTON, D. C., April 20, 1878. 27
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HISTORY OF ASHTABULA COUNTY, OHIO.
Platt had left his eastern home with reluctance. He feared that even the meagre advantages of schools and education he there enjoyed would in the new country be denied him, and the hopes that had begun to dawn in his young breast be doomed to disappointment. In the many privations and rugged labors of the pioneers he had to bear his part, but his love for his pen and desire for learning were too deeply rooted to die out. Of books there were few, and teachers almost none ; yet, without repining for denied advantages, he made industrious use of those at hand. The poet's injunction,
" That is best which lieth nearest, Shape from that thy work of art,"
found an early lodgment in his heart.
The shore of the noble lake near which he dwelt had a peculiar fascination for him. There he loved to spend his leisure hours, and its broad, beautiful beach from spring till autumn, and its expanse of ice in winter, he covered with endless chirographie tracings.
To a mind like his, keenly responsive to Nature's touch, such a school, even in such an art, could not be fruitless. The perfections of form and movement in the things about him-in wild flowers and trailing vines that adorned the bank, the rounded pebbles at his feet, the birds that soared or skimmed the surface of the lake, and, more than all, the restless, unwearied, rhythmic sweep of the waves-diffused through him their influence upon his work, and, as he practiced on, those forms and ideas grew that in after-years lent a charm both to his teach- ings and to the products of his pen. Of the impress thus received, he long afterwards beautifully wrote, under the title " Origin of Spencerian Writing," the following :
"Evolved 'mid Nature's unpruned scenes, On Erie's wild and woody shore, The rolling wave, the dancing streams, The wild rose haunts in days of yore.
" The opal, quartz, and ammonite Gleaming beneath the wavelet's flow, Each gave its lesson how to write, In the loved years of long ago.
" I seized the forms I loved so well, Compounded them as meaning signs, And, to the music of the swell, Blent them with undulating vines.
" The grace that clustered round me came Through the rapt sense to living forms, And flowing lines, with rapture traced, The broad and shining beach adorned.
"Thanks, Nature, for the impress pure ; Those tracings in the sand are gone; But while the love of thee endures Their grace and ease shall still live on."
In his twelfth year Platt enjoyed for a time the privileges of a school opened by Mr. Harvey Nettleton, in Conneaut. In order that he might not be disturbed by the mischief-loving, or lose a grain of this golden opportunity, he partitioned off from the rest his desk in the corner, and there applied himself cagerly to his studies. The copies and instructions in writing required in the school were fur- nished by him. Here, also, he made his first attempt, that has been preserved, at versification.
Being anxious to complete the study of arithmetic, we find Platt a while after this walking twenty miles, barefooted, over a frozen frontier road to obtain the loan of a copy of Daboll. His sole refreshment upon this trip was a lunch of raw turnips at a wayside patch, and being overtaken by night, upon his return, he sought his lodging in a settler's barn, being too bashful to apply at the cabin near by for accommodations.
After leaving Mr. Nettleton's school he was employed as a clerk in a store, first by Mr. Ensign, of Conncaut, and afterwards by Mr. Anan Harmon, of Ash- tabula. With the latter he remained some years. It is related that while in the employ of that gentleman, who, among other things, was a ship-owner, Platt was at one time, when about seventeen, sent out with a vessel as supercargo, and that on her return to port the decks, cabins, and sides of the craft were covered with multitudinous chirographic embellishments, the handiwork, it need not be said, of the young supercargo.
Use in actual business now gave to his writing the required practical mould, and continuing to think and practice much upon his art, with increased facilities, his ideas and skill developed so rapidly that ere his twentieth ycar, it is said, the beautiful style and system were essentially formed, which he afterwards practiced, taught, and published.
Mr. Spencer seems now to have been employed for some years in teaching
writing and common schools. His fine social and intellectual qualities also, and his talents as a public speaker, werc manifested, and, together with his skill as a penman, were continually increasing his reputation and widening the circle of his friends. In 1825 he re-visited the east, and continued for two years teaching in the vicinity of the homes of his childhood. Then, returning to the west, he was married in the year, 1828 to Miss Persis Duty, also one of the teachers of those pioneer times, and a woman of sterling character. They settled in Ashtabula for a time, and then removed to Geneva, where, save short residences in Jefferson and Ober- lin, they continued thereafter to make their home.
Here upon his farm, and not far distant from his house, with the forest in the background, a pleasant grassy lawn in front, and groups of peach-trees and thrifty chestnuts shading its sides or growing near, stood the famous rustic structure he used as a school-room, and known as Jericho, or the Log Seminary. He would alternate his teaching at cities and villages abroad with classes at the Log Semi- nary, and at this shrine, year after year, were gathered from far and near the devotees of the chirographic art to light their tapers at its genial flame. Here the atmosphere of cheerful kindliness surrounding the master, the works of his pen, and the charm of his instructions, quaint, humorous, wise, and full of quiet enthusiasm, made the times spent at Jericho " red-letter days" in the memory of those who enjoyed its advantages.
In 1838, Mr. Spencer was elected treasurer of Ashtabula County, and he served the people with such acceptance in that capacity, that he was retained by them for twelve years in the discharge of the duties of that office.
In the establishment of commercial and business colleges Mr. Spencer was a pioneer. In 1852 we find him at the head of the Spencerian Commercial college in Pittsburgh, his eldest son, Robert, one of the principal teachers of commercial branches. That prosperous institution after two years, owing to the protracted sickness of Mr. Spencer, was sold to Peter Duff, and merged into the well-known Duff college. In 1855, two of Mr. Spencer's pupils, Messrs. Lusk & Stratton, arranged to open an institution in Cleveland, and were soon joined by Mr. H. B. Bryant, and the school called Bryant, Lusk & Stratton's Commercial college. Mr. Spencer was the chief benefactor of the enterprise; his ideas, his extensive acquaintance and high reputation as a teacher, and his famous system of penman- ship, under the business tact and management of Mr. H. D. Stratton, especially, were utilized not only in the establishment of the Cleveland institution, but in the establishment successively of forty or more similar colleges in the important commercial centres of the United States and Canada. These have made a grateful mark upon the business interests of our times, and shaped the career of many thousand young men.
As early as in 1842 he became interested in the temperance reform, then beginning to engage the attention of the people. His own prolonged struggle with the tempter in earlier life-in which he was helped to gain the victory by the kindly, Christian influence of his wife-brought this subject home to him with a vital interest. From the first he took the strong and safe ground of total absti- nence from everything which could intoxicate. He was active in forming and maintaining temperance associations, was constantly using his personal influence, and frequently his gifts as a public speaker and poet in behalf of the cause. This stanza is from one of his temperance poems, entitled " Touch not, taste not" :
" Touch not the juice that wooes the taste, Its promises are false and frail ; Its siren pleasures quickly waste, And all its proffered treasures fail."
When the crusade against slavery began in this country, Mr. Spencer was among the first who rallied to the standard. Human slavery was a thing abhor- rent to his generous, liberty-loving soul ; and he joined earnestly in the work of freeing his country from that terrible blot of crime and suffering. A friend of Joshua R. Giddings, he was one of those men whose hearty co-operation and sympathy at home upheld the hands of that gallant old disciple of freedom in the national councils.
It was the influence of such spirits that, when two-thirds of the north cowered at the feet of the slave power, made the Western Reserve one of the strongholds of freedom.
In his public addresses, particularly in the Fourth of July orations he was called upon to deliver from time to time, Mr. Spencer would frequently employ the opportunity to raise his voice effectively against the great national crime. Among his papers we find the following note from Mr. Giddings, addressed to him from the hall of representatives at Washington :
" Thanks for that speech, which I presume was delivered on the Fourth. That is the true style; let us have the words of independent freemen on every hand, in every place, and on every occasion. These are stirring times. Our cause is onward."
RESpincér
Al Spencer.
727
Since Sinan
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HISTORY OF ASHTABULA COUNTY, OHIO.
He lived to see the contest between freedom and slavery transferred from the court of reason to the terrible arbitrament of the sword. And although he was not permitted to see the end, he retained a firm faith that the principles he so cherished would eventually triumph, and his country emerge from the conflict a truly united people.
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